DETROIT ? The latest news on the Chevrolet Volt is that General Motors is going to change battery suppliers. GM had been buying lithium-metal-oxide batteries from LG Chem. Now it will switch to lithium-phosphate batteries from A123. The lithium-phosphate batteries are less likely to catch fire if damaged, but they hold about 10 percent less energy, so that could impact the Volt’s pure-electric driving range.
In other electric vehicle news, Tesla?s stock was downgraded Thursday by Morgan Stanley, which cut its target price for the stock by 37 percent. This is significant because up to now Morgan Stanley had been a rah-rah cheerleader for Tesla and EVs in general. It previously predicted that electric cars would hit 8.5 percent of global sales by 2025. Now it is cutting that forecast to only 4.5 percent. It says EVs are just not ready for prime time, something we?ve been saying on Autoline Daily for years.
And yet, a new study shows there are now more electric car charging stations in the United States than there are gas stations that sell E-85 fuel. This, despite the fact there are only a little over 16,000 electric cars in the country, compared to 7.6 million vehicles that can run on E-85. And folks, that?s the kind of imbalance you get in the marketplace when the government tries to pick winners and losers.
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